1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image processing technique.
2. Related Art
In recent years, the realization of high-resolution images to be input to video display equipment such as projectors, liquid crystal televisions, or plasma televisions has been advanced. In such equipment, for completing image processing on numerous pixels composing a screen image in a short time, a method is sometimes employed in which input image data is divided into a plurality of partial image data and processed in parallel. When processing is applied using a plurality of image processing sections to the data which is divided into the plurality of partial image data and input thereto, each of the image processing sections performs a so-called filtering process in which each of the image processing sections refers to pixel data in a peripheral region (hereinafter also referred to as peripheral pixel data) of the divided partial image data. An example of techniques of performing the filtering process with reference to peripheral pixel data is disclosed in, for example, JP-A-2006-5524.
As a method for directly exchanging peripheral pixel data among the image processing sections, the following method has been employed: each of the image processing sections is connected to a plurality of image processing sections which take charge of processing adjacent partial image data, with respective lines for peripheral pixel data exchange; and the image processing section directly communicates with each of the others to exchange the peripheral pixel data. In the method, each image processing section needs to communicate with a maximum of eight other image processing sections therearound. Specifically, the image processing section needs to exchange peripheral pixel data with image processing sections which take charge of processing adjacent partial image data in up, down, left, right, obliquely upper right, obliquely upper left, obliquely lower left, and obliquely lower right directions with one partial image as the center, i.e., eight image processing sections in total. Accordingly, the numbers of transceivers, wirings, pins of devices, and the like are increased.